Two Bills on Reservations to Specially & Economically Backward Classes passed in Rajasthan Assembly

Two separate bills providing for 5 percent and 14 percent reservation for Specially Backward Classes (SBC) and Economically Backward Classes (EBC) respectively were passed on 22 September 2015 by the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly.

The beneficiaries under the SBC quota are-Banjara/Baldiya/Labana, Gadiya Lohar/Gadoliya, Gujar/Gurjar, Raika/Rebari/Debasi and Gadariya/Gadri/Gayari .

The purpose of the bills is to ensure advancement of backward communities and financially weaker sections of unreserved categories in the state.

However, the reservations will be enforced during admissions to educational institutions and appointments to state government services only.

These reservations are in addition to the existing reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Class (OBC) categories.

Hence, in order to protect them from judicial scrutiny, the Assembly also passed resolutions requesting the state government to make efforts to get the bills included in the ninth schedule of the constitution.

Titles of the bills are: Rajasthan Special Backward Classes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutes in the State and of Appointments and Posts in Services under the State) Bill 2015 and Rajasthan Economically Backward Classes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutes in the State and of Appointments and Posts in Services under the State) Bill 2015.

Why the Assembly wants the bills in the Ninth Schedule?

The Ninth Schedule to the Constitution of India protects any legislation inserted within it from judicial review. It was inserted by the first amendment to the constitution in 1951.

Now, with the extension of affirmative action to SBCs and EBCs, the cumulative reservations in the state will exceed 50 percent limit imposed by the Supreme Court of India in the M R Balaji v Mysore AIR case of 1963.

Hence, in order to protect them from any judicial scrutiny the state legislature proposed to include them in the schedule.

At present, a similar legislation- The Tamil Nadu BCs, SCs and STs (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institution and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 1993-is placed under the schedule that was inserted by the 76th amendment to the constitution.

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